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Cairo - Gunmen killed five Egyptian soldiers near the Suez
Canal city of Ismailia on Monday, security sources said, in a series of attacks
that highlight growing insecurity since the army ousted Islamist president
Mohammed Morsi.

In an interview published on Monday, Egypt's army chief said
he had told Morsi as long ago as February that the president had failed, about
five months before the military removed him.

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made the remarks before dozens
died on Sunday in clashes involving security forces, supporters of Morsi’s
Muslim Brotherhood and their opponents.

The security sources said the gunmen opened fire on the
soldiers while they were sitting in a car at a checkpoint near Ismailia on the
Canal, a vital global trade route.

In a separate incident, an explosion near a state security
building in South Sinai killed two people and injured 48, medical sources said.
A witness said the explosion was caused by a car bomb.

In the most brazen attack of the day, assailants fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at a state-owned satellite station in the Maadi suburb
of Cairo on Monday, wounding two people, security officials said.

Attacks by Sinai-based militants have risen sharply since
the army toppled Morsi and promised a roadmap that would lead Egypt to free and
fair elections.

Almost daily attacks by al-Qaeda-inspired militants in the
Sinai have killed more than 100 members of the security forces since early
July, the army spokesperson said on 15 September.

Militant violence elsewhere in Egypt has raised fears that
an Islamist insurgency, like one eventually crushed in the 1990s by then
president Hosni Mubarak, could take hold beyond Sinai.

The militant attacks, including a failed assassination
attempt on the interior minister in Cairo in September, are deepening
insecurity in Egypt along with the power struggle between the Brotherhood and
the army-backed government.

The death toll from clashes in Egypt rose to 53 on Monday,
state media said, as calm returned to the streets after one of the bloodiest
days since the military deposed Morsi.

Security forces take control

Traffic flowed normally in central Cairo where thousands of Morsi
supporters had battled security forces and army supporters on Sunday on the
anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel.

State radio said security forces had regained full control
of Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. In addition to the
dead, state media said 271 people had been wounded in the clashes. Most of the
casualties were Morsi supporters, security sources said.

Further confrontations may shake Egypt this week. An
alliance that includes the Muslim Brotherhood has urged Egyptians to stage more
protests against the army takeover from Tuesday and gather on Cairo's Tahrir
Square on Friday.

Political turmoil since the army unseated Morsi on 3 July
has unnerved foreign investors and hammered tourism, a pillar of the economy,
but there is no sign of reconciliation between the Brotherhood and the
army-backed government.

Authorities had warned that anyone protesting against the
army during Sunday's 1973 war anniversary would be regarded as an agent of
foreign powers, not an activist - a hardening of language that suggests
authorities may crack down harder.

National interests

The Brotherhood remains defiant, organising demonstrations,
even if they are much smaller than ones staged weeks ago.

Army chief Sisi, in an interview published in a privately
owned newspaper, al-Masry al-Youm, said Egypt's national interests differed
from those of the Brotherhood as an organisation.

In the interview conducted before Sunday's violence, Sisi
also spoke about his previous meetings with Morsi, whose time in office he said
had driven Egypt in the direction of civil war.

"I told Morsi in February you failed and your project
is finished," al-Masry al-Youm quoted Sisi as saying.

Sisi denied Brotherhood allegations that the army had
intended to remove Morsi through a coup, saying it had only responded to the
will of the people.

Before Morsi’s overthrow, Egyptians disillusioned with his
year-long rule had held huge rallies demanding that he quit.

Last month, a court banned the Brotherhood and froze its
assets, pushing the group, which had dominated elections held in Egypt after
Mubarak's fall in 2011, further into the cold.

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